Owned by Graham Media Group, the station maintains studios on North St. Mary's Street on the northern edge of downtown, and its transmitter is located off Route 181 in northwest Wilson County (northeast of Elmendorf).

The first applicant for the allocation came in June 1952, from Bexar County Television Corporation, a subsidiary of Alamo Broadcasting Company, owners of radio station KABC.

[5] Sunshine would later withdraw its application, although another player would throw their hat into the ring in January 1954: the Walmac Corporation, owners of KMAC radio.

[6] In an attempt to avoid long, drawn-out hearings for a license, Walmac and Mission met in May 1954 to work out an agreement between the two parties.

[11] Assistant station manager Jack Roth noted that viewers from as far as Corpus Christi, Austin, Kerrville, Boerne, and Camp Wood were all receiving the test pattern.

[12] Eugene Roth, Mission chairman, said that the reason he decided to sell the station was because of the increasing costs needed to keep pace with the rapidly growing television industry.

KENS management cited that the poor performance of CBS programming would jeopardize the station's overall dominance in the San Antonio market.

In March 2014, KSAT relocated from its longtime St. Mary's Street studios to a new, state-of-the-art two-story facility that was built in an area that was formerly part of the station's parking lot.

The building houses a large newsroom, numerous offices and meeting spaces, a convenience store-style breakroom for staff and a courtyard with outdoor seating as well as a grill and garden area.

On February 5, 2009, KSAT became the second television station in the San Antonio market to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition.

On May 26, 2011, KSAT debuted a half-hour late afternoon newscast at 4 p.m., titled First News At Four; the program (along with its lead-out Inside Edition) replaced The Oprah Winfrey Show, which ended its syndication run on May 25, 2011.

[21] Tragedy struck the station on March 26, 1999, when anchor/reporter and rising star Michelle Lima was killed while reporting live during a newscast from the scene of a search for a 9-year-old boy.

As she was helping pack up for a future assignment, Lima was hit by a truck on a dark rural frontage road in southern Bexar County.